The Talisman

“Peace, Richard,” said the hermit – “oh, peace, for shame, if not for charity! Who shall praise or honour princes who insult and calumniate each other? Alas! that a creature so noble as thou art – so accomplished in princely thoughts and princely daring – so fitted to honour Christendom by thy actions, and, in thy calmer mood, to rule her by thy wisdom, should yet have the brute and wild fury of the lion mingled with the dignity and courage of that king of the forest!”

He remained an instant musing with his eyes fixed on the ground, and then proceeded – “But Heaven, that knows our imperfect nature, accepts of our imperfect obedience, and hath delayed, though not averted, the bloody end of thy daring life. The destroying angel hath stood still, as of old by the threshing-floor of Araunah the Jebusite, and the blade is drawn in his hand, by which, at no distant date, Richard, the lion-hearted, shall be as low as the meanest peasant.”

“Must it, then, be so soon?” said Richard. “Yet, even so be it. May my course be bright, if it be but brief!”

“Alas! noble King,” said the solitary, and it seemed as if a tear (unwonted guest) were gathering in his dry and glazened eye, “short and melancholy, marked with mortification, and calamity, and captivity, is the span that divides thee from the grave which yawns for thee – a grave in which thou shalt be laid without lineage to succeed thee – without the tears of a people, exhausted by thy ceaseless wars, to lament thee – without having extended the knowledge of thy subjects – without having done aught to enlarge their happiness.”

“But not without renown, monk – not without the tears of the lady of my love! These consolations, which thou canst neither know nor estimate, await upon Richard to his grave.”

“DO I not know, CAN I not estimate the value of minstrel’s praise and of lady’s love?” retorted the hermit, in a tone which for a moment seemed to emulate the enthusiasm of Richard himself. “King of England,” he continued, extending his emaciated arm, “the blood which boils in thy blue veins is not more noble than that which stagnates in mine. Few and cold as the drops are, they still are of the blood of the royal Lusignan – of the heroic and sainted Godfrey. I am – that is, I was when in the world – Alberick Mortemar – ”

“Whose deeds,” said Richard, “have so often filled Fame’s trumpet! Is it so? – can it be so? Could such a light as thine fall from the horizon of chivalry, and yet men be uncertain where its embers had alighted?”

“Seek a fallen star,” said the hermit, “and thou shalt only light on some foul jelly, which, in shooting through the horizon, has assumed for a moment an appearance of splendour. Richard, if I thought that rending the bloody veil from my horrible fate could make thy proud heart stoop to the discipline of the church, I could find in my heart to tell thee a tale, which I have hitherto kept gnawing at my vitals in concealment, like the self-devoted youth of heathenesse. Listen, then, Richard, and may the grief and despair which cannot avail this wretched remnant of what was once a man be powerful as an example to so noble, yet so wild, a being as thou art! Yes – I will – I WILL tear open the long-hidden wounds, although in thy very presence they should bleed to death!”

King Richard, upon whom the history of Alberick of Mortemar had made a deep impression in his early years, when minstrels were regaling his father’s halls with legends of the Holy Land, listened with respect to the outlines of a tale, which, darkly and imperfectly sketched, indicated sufficiently the cause of the partial insanity of this singular and most unhappy being.

“I need not,” he said, “tell thee that I was noble in birth, high in fortune, strong in arms, wise in counsel. All these I was. But while the noblest ladies in Palestine strove which should wind garlands for my helmet, my love was fixed – unalterably and devotedly fixed – on a maiden of low degree. Her father, an ancient soldier of the Cross, saw our passion, and knowing the difference betwixt us, saw no other refuge for his daughter’s honour than to place her within the shadow of the cloister. I returned from a distant expedition, loaded with spoils and honour, to find my happiness was destroyed for ever! I too sought the cloister; and Satan, who had marked me for his own, breathed into my heart a vapour of spiritual pride, which could only have had its source in his own infernal regions. I had risen as high in the church as before in the state. I was, forsooth, the wise, the self-sufficient, the impeccable! – I was the counsellor of councils – I was the director of prelates. How should I stumble? – wherefore should I fear temptation? Alas! I became confessor to a sisterhood, and amongst that sisterhood I found the long-loved – the long-lost. Spare me further confession! – A fallen nun, whose guilt was avenged by self-murder, sleeps soundly in the vaults of Engaddi; while, above her very grave, gibbers, moans, and roars a creature to whom but so much reason is left as may suffice to render him completely sensible to his fate!”

“Unhappy man!” said Richard, “I wonder no longer at thy misery. How didst thou escape the doom which the canons denounce against thy offence?”

“Ask one who is yet in the gall of worldly bitterness,” said the hermit, “and he will speak of a life spared for personal respects, and from consideration to high birth. But, Richard, I tell thee that Providence hath preserved me to lift me on high as a light and beacon, whose ashes, when this earthly fuel is burnt out, must yet be flung into Tophet. Withered and shrunk as this poor form is, it is yet animated with two spirits – one active, shrewd, and piercing, to advocate the cause of the Church of Jerusalem; one mean, abject, and despairing, fluctuating between madness and misery, to mourn over my own wretchedness, and to guard holy relics on which it would be most sinful for me even to cast my eye. Pity me not! – it is but sin to pity the loss of such an abject; pity me not, but profit by my example. Thou standest on the highest, and, therefore, on the most dangerous pinnacle occupied by any Christian prince. Thou art proud of heart, loose of life, bloody of hand. Put from thee the sins which are to thee as daughters – though they be dear to the sinful Adam, expel these adopted furies from thy breast – thy pride, thy luxury, thy bloodthirstiness.”

“He raves,” said Richard, turning from the solitary to De Vaux, as one who felt some pain from a sarcasm which yet he could not resent; then turned him calmly, and somewhat scornfully, to the anchoret, as he replied, “Thou hast found a fair bevy of daughters, reverend father, to one who hath been but few months married; but since I must put them from my roof, it were but like a father to provide them with suitable matches. Therefore, I will part with my pride to the noble canons of the church – my luxury, as thou callest it, to the monks of the rule – and my bloodthirstiness to the Knights of the Temple.”

“O heart of steel, and hand of iron,” said the anchoret, “upon whom example, as well as advice, is alike thrown away! Yet shalt thou be spared for a season, in case it so be thou shouldst turn, and do that which is acceptable in the sight of Heaven. For me I must return to my place. Kyrie Eleison! I am he through whom the rays of heavenly grace dart like those of the sun through a burning-glass, concentrating them on other objects, until they kindle and blaze, while the glass itself remains cold and uninfluenced. Kyrie Eleison! – the poor must be called, for the rich have refused the banquet – Kyrie Eleison!”

So saying, he burst from the tent, uttering loud cries.

“A mad priest!” said Richard, from whose mind the frantic exclamations of the hermit had partly obliterated the impression produced by the detail of his personal history and misfortunes. “After him, De Vaux, and see he comes to no harm; for, Crusaders as we are, a juggler hath more reverence amongst our varlets than a priest or a saint, and they may, perchance, put some scorn upon him.”

The knight obeyed, and Richard presently gave way to the thoughts which the wild prophecy of the monk had inspired. “To die early – without lineage – without lamentation! A heavy sentence, and well that it is not passed by a more competent judge. Yet the Saracens, who are accomplished in mystical knowledge, will often maintain that He, in whose eyes the wisdom of the sage is but as folly, inspires wisdom and prophecy into the seeming folly of the madman. Yonder hermit is said to read the stars, too, an art generally practised in these lands, where the heavenly host was of yore the object of idolatry. I would I had asked him touching the loss of my banner; for not the blessed Tishbite, the founder of his order, could seem more wildly rapt out of himself, or speak with a tongue more resembling that of a prophet. – How now, De Vaux, what news of the mad priest?”

“Mad priest, call you him, my lord?” answered De Vaux. “Methinks he resembles more the blessed Baptist himself, just issued from the wilderness. He has placed himself on one of the military engines, and from thence he preaches to the soldiers as never man preached since the time of Peter the Hermit. The camp, alarmed by his cries, crowd around him in thousands; and breaking off every now and then from the main thread of his discourse, he addresses the several nations, each in their own language, and presses upon each the arguments best qualified to urge them to perseverance in the delivery of Palestine.”

“By this light, a noble hermit!” said King Richard. “But what else could come from the blood of Godfrey? HE despair of safety, because he hath in former days lived PAR AMOURS? I will have the Pope send him an ample remission, and I would not less willingly be intercessor had his BELLE AMIE been an abbess.”

As he spoke, the Archbishop of Tyre craved audience, for the purpose of requesting Richard’s attendance, should his health permit, on a secret conclave of the chiefs of the Crusade, and to explain to him the military and political incidents which had occurred during his illness.

CHAPTER XIX

     Must we then sheathe our still victorious sword;     Turn back our forward step, which ever trod     O’er foemen’s necks the onward path of glory;     Unclasp the mail, which with a solemn vow,     In God’s own house, we hung upon our shoulders —     That vow, as unaccomplish’d as the promise     Which village nurses make to still their children,     And after think no more of?THE CRUSADE, A TRAGEDY.

The Archbishop of Tyre was an emissary well chosen to communicate to Richard tidings, which from another voice the lion-hearted King would not have brooked to hear without the most unbounded explosions of resentment. Even this sagacious and reverend prelate found difficulty in inducing him to listen to news which destroyed all his hopes of gaining back the Holy Sepulchre by force of arms, and acquiring the renown which the universal all-hail of Christendom was ready to confer upon him as the Champion of the Cross.

But, by the Archbishop’s report, it appeared that Saladin was assembling all the force of his hundred tribes, and that the monarchs of Europe, already disgusted from various motives with the expedition, which had proved so hazardous, and was daily growing more so, had resolved to abandon their purpose. In this they were countenanced by the example of Philip of France, who, with many protestations of regard, and assurances that he would first see his brother of England in safety, declared his intention to return to Europe. His great vassal, the Earl of Champagne, had adopted the same resolution; and it could not excite surprise that Leopold of Austria, affronted as he had been by Richard, was glad to embrace an opportunity of deserting a cause in which his haughty opponent was to be considered as chief. Others announced the same purpose; so that it was plain that the King of England was to be left, if he chose to remain, supported only by such volunteers as might, under such depressing circumstances, join themselves to the English army, and by the doubtful aid of Conrade of Montserrat and the military orders of the Temple and of Saint John, who, though they were sworn to wage battle against the Saracens, were at least equally jealous of any European monarch achieving the conquest of Palestine, where, with shortsighted and selfish policy, they proposed to establish independent dominions of their own.

It needed not many arguments to show Richard the truth of his situation; and indeed, after his first burst of passion, he sat him calmly down, and with gloomy looks, head depressed, and arms folded on his bosom, listened to the Archbishop’s reasoning on the impossibility of his carrying on the Crusade when deserted by his companions. Nay, he forbore interruption, even when the prelate ventured, in measured terms, to hint that Richard’s own impetuosity had been one main cause of disgusting the princes with the expedition.

“CONFITEOR,” answered Richard, with a dejected look, and something of a melancholy smile – “I confess, reverend father, that I ought on some accounts to sing CULPA MEA. But is it not hard that my frailties of temper should be visited with such a penance – that, for a burst or two of natural passion, I should be doomed to see fade before me ungathered such a rich harvest of glory to God and honour to chivalry? But it shall NOT fade. By the soul of the Conqueror, I will plant the Cross on the towers of Jerusalem, or it shall be planted over Richard’s grave!”

“Thou mayest do it,” said the prelate, “yet not another drop of Christian blood be shed in the quarrel.”

“Ah, you speak of compromise, Lord Prelate; but the blood of the infidel hounds must also cease to flow,” said Richard.

“There will be glory enough,” replied the Archbishop, “in having extorted from Saladin, by force of arms, and by the respect inspired by your fame, such conditions as at once restore the Holy Sepulchre, open the Holy Land to pilgrims, secure their safety by strong fortresses, and, stronger than all, assure the safety of the Holy City, by conferring on Richard the title of King Guardian of Jerusalem.”

“How!” said Richard, his eyes sparkling with unusual light. “I – I – I the King Guardian of the Holy City! Victory itself, but that it is victory, could not gain more – scarce so much, when won with unwilling and disunited forces. But Saladin still proposes to retain his interest in the Holy Land?”

“As a joint sovereign, the sworn ally,” replied the prelate, “of the mighty Richard – his relative, if it may be permitted, by marriage.”

“By marriage!” said Richard, surprised, yet less so than the prelate had expected. “Ha! – ay – Edith Plantagenet. Did I dream this? or did some one tell me? My head is still weak from this fever, and has been agitated. Was it the Scot, or the Hakim, or yonder holy hermit, that hinted such a wild bargain?”

“The hermit of Engaddi, most likely,” said the Archbishop, “for he hath toiled much in this matter; and since the discontent of the princes has became apparent, and a separation of their forces unavoidable, he hath had many consultations, both with Christian and pagan, for arranging such a pacification as may give to Christendom, at least in part, the objects of this holy warfare.”

“My kinswoman to an infidel – ha!” exclaimed Richard, as his eyes began to sparkle.

The prelate hastened to avert his wrath.

“The Pope’s consent must doubtless be first attained, and the holy hermit, who is well known at Rome, will treat with the holy Father.”

“How? – without our consent first given?” said the King.

“Surely no,” said the Bishop, in a quieting and insinuating tone of voice – “only with and under your especial sanction.”

“My sanction to marry my kinswoman to an infidel!” said Richard; yet he spoke rather in a tone of doubt than as distinctly reprobating the measure proposed. “Could I have dreamed of such a composition when I leaped upon the Syrian shore from the prow of my galley, even as a lion springs on his prey! And now – But proceed – I will hear with patience.”

Equally delighted and surprised to find his task so much easier than he had apprehended, the Archbishop hastened to pour forth before Richard the instances of such alliances in Spain – not without countenance from the Holy See; the incalculable advantages which all Christendom would derive from the union of Richard and Saladin by a bond so sacred; and, above all, he spoke with great vehemence and unction on the probability that Saladin would, in case of the proposed alliance, exchange his false faith for the true one.

“Hath the Soldan shown any disposition to become Christian?” said Richard. “If so, the king lives not on earth to whom I would grant the hand of a kinswoman, ay, or sister, sooner than to my noble Saladin – ay, though the one came to lay crown and sceptre at her feet, and the other had nothing to offer but his good sword and better heart!”

“Saladin hath heard our Christian teachers,” said the Bishop, somewhat evasively – “my unworthy self, and others – and as he listens with patience, and replies with calmness, it can hardly be but that he be snatched as a brand from the burning. MAGNA EST VERITAS, ET PREVALEBIT! moreover, the hermit of Engaddi, few of whose words have fallen fruitless to the ground, is possessed fully with the belief that there is a calling of the Saracens and the other heathen approaching, to which this marriage shall be matter of induction. He readeth the course of the stars; and dwelling, with maceration of the flesh, in those divine places which the saints have trodden of old, the spirit of Elijah the Tishbite, the founder of his blessed order, hath been with him as it was with the prophet Elisha, the son of Shaphat, when he spread his mantle over him.”

King Richard listened to the Prelate’s reasoning with a downcast brow and a troubled look.

“I cannot tell,” he said, “How, it is with me, but methinks these cold counsels of the Princes of Christendom have infected me too with a lethargy of spirit. The time hath been that, had a layman proposed such alliance to me, I had struck him to earth – if a churchman, I had spit at him as a renegade and priest of Baal; yet now this counsel sounds not so strange in mine ear. For why should I not seek for brotherhood and alliance with a Saracen, brave, just, generous – who loves and honours a worthy foe, as if he were a friend – whilst the Princes of Christendom shrink from the side of their allies, and forsake the cause of Heaven and good knighthood? But I will possess my patience, and will not think of them. Only one attempt will I make to keep this gallant brotherhood together, if it be possible; and if I fail, Lord Archbishop, we will speak together of thy counsel, which, as now, I neither accept nor altogether reject. Wend we to the Council, my lord – the hour calls us. Thou sayest Richard is hasty and proud – thou shalt see him humble himself like the lowly broom-plant from which he derives his surname.”

With the assistance of those of his privy chamber, the King then hastily robed himself in a doublet and mantle of a dark and uniform colour; and without any mark of regal dignity, excepting a ring of gold upon his head, he hastened with the Archbishop of Tyre to attend the Council, which waited but his presence to commence its sitting.

The pavilion of the Council was an ample tent, having before it the large Banner of the Cross displayed, and another, on which was portrayed a female kneeling, with dishevelled hair and disordered dress, meant to represent the desolate and distressed Church of Jerusalem, and bearing the motto, AFFLICTAE SPONSAE NE OBLIVISCARIS. Warders, carefully selected, kept every one at a distance from the neighbourhood of this tent, lest the debates, which were sometimes of a loud and stormy character, should reach other ears than those they were designed for.

Here, therefore, the princes of the Crusade were assembled awaiting Richard’s arrival. And even the brief delay which was thus interposed was turned to his disadvantage by his enemies, various instances being circulated of his pride and undue assumption of superiority, of which even the necessity of the present short pause was quoted as an instance. Men strove to fortify each other in their evil opinion of the King of England, and vindicated the offence which each had taken, by putting the most severe construction upon circumstances the most trifling; and all this, perhaps, because they were conscious of an instinctive reverence for the heroic monarch, which it would require more than ordinary efforts to overcome.

They had settled, accordingly, that they should receive him on his entrance with slight notice, and no more respect than was exactly necessary to keep within the bounds of cold ceremonial. But when they beheld that noble form, that princely countenance, somewhat pale from his late illness – the eye which had been called by minstrels the bright star of battle and victory – when his feats, almost surpassing human strength and valour, rushed on their recollection, the Council of Princes simultaneously arose – even the jealous King of France and the sullen and offended Duke of Austria – arose with one consent, and the assembled princes burst forth with one voice in the acclamation, “God save King Richard of England! Long life to the valiant Lion’s-heart!”

With a countenance frank and open as the summer sun when it rises, Richard distributed his thanks around, and congratulated himself on being once more among his royal brethren of the Crusade.

“Some brief words he desired to say,” such was his address to the assembly, “though on a subject so unworthy as himself, even at the risk of delaying for a few minutes their consultations for the weal of Christendom and the advancement of their holy enterprise.”

The assembled princes resumed their seats, and there was a profound silence.

“This day,” continued the King of England, “is a high festival of the church, and it well becomes Christian men, at such a tide, to reconcile themselves with their brethren, and confess their faults to each other. Noble princes and fathers of this holy expedition, Richard is a soldier – his hand is ever readier than his tongue – and his tongue is but too much used to the rough language of his trade. But do not, for Plantagenet’s hasty speeches and ill-considered actions, forsake the noble cause of the redemption of Palestine – do not throw away earthly renown and eternal salvation, to be won here if ever they can be won by man, because the act of a soldier may have been hasty, and his speech as hard as the iron which he has worn from childhood. Is Richard in default to any of you, Richard will make compensation both by word and action. – Noble brother of France, have I been so unlucky as to offend you?”

“The Majesty of France has no atonement to seek from that of England,” answered Philip, with kingly dignity, accepting, at the same time, the offered hand of Richard; “and whatever opinion I may adopt concerning the prosecution of this enterprise will depend on reasons arising out of the state of my own kingdom – certainly on no jealousy or disgust at my royal and most valorous brother.”

“Austria,” said Richard, walking up to the Archduke, with a mixture of frankness and dignity, while Leopold arose from his seat, as if involuntarily, and with the action of an automaton, whose motions depended upon some external impulse – “Austria thinks he hath reason to be offended with England; England, that he hath cause to complain of Austria. Let them exchange forgiveness, that the peace of Europe and the concord of this host may remain unbroken. We are now joint supporters of a more glorious banner than ever blazed before an earthly prince, even the Banner of Salvation. Let not, therefore, strife be betwixt us for the symbol of our more worldly dignities; but let Leopold restore the pennon of England, if he has it in his power, and Richard will say, though from no motive save his love for Holy Church, that he repents him of the hasty mood in which he did insult the standard of Austria.”

The Archduke stood still, sullen and discontented, with his eyes fixed on the floor, and his countenance lowering with smothered displeasure, which awe, mingled with awkwardness, prevented his giving vent to in words.

The Patriarch of Jerusalem hastened to break the embarrassing silence, and to bear witness for the Archduke of Austria that he had exculpated himself, by a solemn oath, from all knowledge, direct or indirect, of the aggression done to the Banner of England.